I tried to do the same thing this past winter, since I have a deep kitchen windowsill which faces southwest, and here are my results: Parsley - potted up a patch of it in the fall, and it grew beautifully all winter, and it still looks great. It's the dwarf, extra curled type. Basil - started some seeds in the fall, since the ones in the garden were already bolting, but had a horrible time with fungus gnats, and gave up on it by February. The basil and parsley seem to have similar water needs. Rosemary - brought in my potted rosemary in the fall. I had read somewhere to be careful not to overwater during the winter, and erred too far in the other direction. I believe it died of thirst sometime in February. Thyme - I didn't bring in, since it is supposed to be perennial in my zone, but it did not make it. This year, I will plant some outside, and keep a pot inside to be sure I have some next year. The other one that I wish I had brought in over the winter is the oregano. Yes, it is perennial in my zone, but I didn't take into account that it would die back, and I would be without fresh oregano for six months! I'm starting some more from seed to grow indoors this time. Wishing you much success, Bonnie

Bark mulch should work if that's what you have. Be sure to pull it back if you do any planting and digging. Don't dig the mulch into the soil because it takes nitrogen out of soil to break down. In the fall be sure to get some fallen leaves and mow over them to use as a feeding mulch. Will be nice & fluffy then and great for your plants as it breaks down. Also keeps them clean for clipping. 3rd pic greek oregano cut when the shoots are at least 12" tall. Right now yours isn't ready to cut as all are low growing spreading. I don't know the official method, but I grab stems like a ponytail & snip below my hand leaving at least 3-5" of plant. I usually start at one side of the plant & work my way over in subsequent cuts. I rarely cut the entire plant at a time now that mine has grown wide, but when it was small I cut the whole plant back. your taller oregano behind the basil plant could be cut back 4th pic thymes all are ready to be cut back & dried for winter use parsley - snip entire stem to 1" of base & it regrows. I usually cut just up to 5 stems at a time leaving at least 1/2 of the plant to regrow. Now that I have a huge patch of parsley I cut like lettuce near the base as much as my hand can grab. regrowth time - varies dependent on water, fertilizer, & sunny weather or not here in our cloudy cool summer climate. If you're busy in other parts of the garden you won't notice it growing back and then one day surprised how much it's grown. I think it would take a few weeks before you notice any growth and at least a month to recut again in summer. In other seasons you won't be cutting much if any. summer flavor is best anyway 1st year plants don't give you as much as 2nd year & older. Once you have them 2nd year & longer the supply will be so much more you won't be able to use all of it. Especially for oregano because it's such a vigorous spreader. The thyme isn't so much. Yes, I think you got the annuals & perennials down for your climate. Technically rosemary is a tender perennial. If you dig up the rosemary & repot it you can overwinter to put out again next year. You could try the same with basil to extend the fall season. Hope that helps~Corrine

Larry, My garden started small, and I added to it every year until about 2005 when we started having more persistent drought and our family started spending a lot more time fighting grass fires, brush fires and wild fires. Since then, my expansion efforts have been hit and miss. Every now and then I've added a little more growing space, but I've wanted to add a lot more. This year, I am adding a lot more. I don't know just yet how much more we'll add this year, but the area we just rototilled and fenced adds about 2000 s. f. more. However, that doesn't necessarily mean I will have 2000 s.f. more than before because we are abandoning a lot of the west and north end of the original garden because it has become too shady to grow many veggies. It might be that if I measured the area we are abandoning to the shade (I will grow shade-loving flowers there and maybe some herbs there), it will just about equal the size of the new gardening area out back. My expansion plans include another area of about 1200 s.f. north of the garage. It is the worst possible clay in the world and there is no way we'll be able to rototill that very deeply, so we'll likely build above-ground using hay bales to build the outline of the raised beds and filling in the interior like a hugelkulture bed topped off with compost from our big compost pile. Then we'll put down cardboard on the remaining area around the two long raised beds and cover it with spoiled hay and chopped/shredded leaves. If we don't have too much rain the next couple of days, this is the area where we'll be working this week. I've always let my pumpkins and winter squash roam and ramble throughout the entire garden which makes it hard to harvest the other stuff at times because the vines are everywhere, so I'm looking forward to being able to let the pumpkins and winter squash roam and ramble without having the vines bury the rest of the garden. If the vines grow outside the fence, I am sure the deer will prune them back as they do when the vines escape the big garden. Then there's the lily pond......which sits right outside the sunporch, in between the house and the detached barn-style garage. You walk right past the lily pond as you go back and forth from the garage to the house to the dog yard. I love my lily pond, but ever since we started having more persistent and long-lasting droughts, it has been hard to enjoy it because once the creeks and ponds dry up, the water moccasins move to the pond. We never had water moccasins in the pond regularly until the drought of 2008-09, but we've had them for part of every year since then. For the last couple of years we've contemplated taking out the pond. After one-too-many close encounters with a water moccasin being a foot or two from a human being, dog or cat, we've decided to fill in the pond this spring. I'll miss having the little fish, frogs and turtles there close to the house, but I sure won't miss the water moccasins. We can't fill it in until enough rain falls that our one remaining pond that still holds water has enough in it for us to move the fish and the water lilies there. Once that happens, we'll fill in the lily pond and plant some sort of a garden with raised beds on top of it. It might be a garden of strictly ornamental plants, or it might be a small potager filled with herbs, flowers and just a few veggies....likely a couple of tomato plants, peppers, and some greens. If we get all this done this spring, that will give me three new growing areas to make up for the northern and northwestern edges of the current big garden where the shade from the adjacent woodland is taking over. Then, there's two more areas I want to develop into new gardening areas, and I also want to do something to change the Peter Rabbit Garden. Maybe I'll take it out completely. It sits directly north of an adjacent cow pasture and is a snake and bug haven throughout the warm season. I've always worried the neighbor's cows will reach through the barbed wire fence and eat the Peter Rabbit Garden's plants, though they never have. In its early years, the Peter Rabbit Garden didn't have those issues with snakes and tons of bugs migrating into it, but as the droughts have worsened, all the wild things have, naturally, flocked to any area still green and moist. This is a year of many changes on our property, and it sounds foolish to be making all these plans and new areas when we are in Extreme Drought, but I'm gonna do it anyway. I always say I'm cutting back, I'm simplifying things, etc. but I rarely do it. I also would like to plant a lot more fruit trees and grow more than just peaches, plums and figs. I now have my eye on a new area south of the new garden we're building. I haven't checked its soil yet, but it looks like it might have some fairly decent soil there. We could fence it off and plant a small orchard there. For the last few years I've put a lot of gardening plans on hold because of persistent drought. I've been waiting for better weather. Well, I don't know that we'll ever have better weather, so I'm just going to go on and expand and do the best I can with whatever weather we get. Dawn

For the cutworms, it is easier to prevent the damage via the use of cutworm collars or sticks than to stop damage once it starts. When I say sticks, I generally mean toothpicks, although you can even use twigs. When I transplant seedlings into the ground, I put toothpicks on two sides of the stems, with half the toothpick below ground and half above ground. This largely interferes with the cutworm wrapping itself around the whole stem and cutting it in half. When climbing cutworms are an issue, I use bamboo skewers since they are so much taller and the climbing cutworms can climb above the toothpicks. However, the sticks will not keep cutworms from eating the plants even if they cannot cut them in half. I've linked a page from Planet Natural that explains cutworms and how you can treat your garden for them. There is a lot of good info there. Because climbing cutworms are a huge issue this year here, along with other caterpillar damage, you could spray your plants with Bt 'Kurstaki' if you can find it in stores. It is largely sold out where I live, but I found some in a farm store a couple of days ago. If you use it, try to keep it off your flowers or it can harm the butterflies that visit the flowers. The Bt will not prevent cutworms from killing tiny seedlings. However, if they are climbing cutworms and are climbing and feeding on plants, it should put a stop to that. If the loss of the California Bell plant is recent, dig into the soil just below the surface where the California Bell plant was growing to see if you can find and destroy the specific worm that got it. Earlier this week, I ordered trichogramma wasps to release. They should arrive around Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. On Thursday I saw the first 'native' trichogramma wasp in my garden that I've seen this spring. I'm not sorry I ordered more of them though because the one I saw cannot possibly deal with all the caterpillars we have here this year. In the meantime, I am going to spray my plants with Bt this evening. I've never seen caterpillar/cutworm damage like I'm seeing this year. In fact, if you took all the damage I've seen in 13 prior years and added it together, this year's damage would be greater than all the prior damage from those 13 years. White grubs generally are not an issue as long as they are not damaging your grass. They are beetle larvae and most ground beetles are beneficial insects who are garden helpers. I tend to ignore the white grubs. If they bother you, you can treat the ground with Milky Spore powder, which is a natural agent that kills them. Applying beneficial nematodes to areas with soil-borne pests is a slower-working solution if the nematodes are applied to moist soil before the heat arrives, but they are not a short-term solution. Bugs and insects are a natural part of the garden ecosystem. There are many good bugs and insects that help control the bad ones and do other important garden tasks as well, so maybe you could develop a liking for those! Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Cutworm Control Page from Planet Natural